


For wherever you go, I will go

by rm (arem)



Category: V for Vendetta (Comic)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-24
Updated: 2006-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-25 07:51:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1639877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arem/pseuds/rm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Thank you to sansets for requesting this; it was a privilege to write.<br/>Thank you to tsarina for reassuring me on its value.<br/>And a note of debt to kalichan who has taught me the value and price of that one inch, and that it is, indeed, always worth it.</p><p>Written for sansets</p>
    </blockquote>





	For wherever you go, I will go

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to sansets for requesting this; it was a privilege to write.  
> Thank you to tsarina for reassuring me on its value.  
> And a note of debt to kalichan who has taught me the value and price of that one inch, and that it is, indeed, always worth it.
> 
> Written for sansets

 

 

When the war came, when it was finally, actually called war and not just the slow creep of supposedly necessary security actions it had been for almost a year, it was Ruth who stayed up through the night watching the television reports and Valerie who fell asleep on their sofa, head in her girlfriend's lap.  What Valerie remembered later, when she thought about that night, which she did, often, was the taught tension of Ruth's distracted fingers in her hair, as if her body knew that to which the mind had not yet acceded.

They talked, as the first months of it dragged on and nothing got worse but it seemed nearly certain that none of it would get better, about leaving.  But Valerie maintained it was they and not the world that was too bleak, that things would surely change soon, while Ruth and her impeccable posture insisted grimly that it was too late, insisted they would not be refugees as her parents had been, knew they would be separated in flight unless they could get papers that said they were sisters.  But they looked nothing alike and the film sets they were able to steal extra butter and coffee from also made it a near certainty that Valerie's face was just well known enough that they might not be able to get out at all, regardless of means legal or not.  All of which assumed that there was any country that wanted them.  There wasn't and wouldn't be.  Valerie wasn't famous enough.  Or married.  Or with child.

And she didn't want to be political.  _But we are political,_ Ruth would say in exasperation and despair.  _Unless you stop fucking me, repent on the tele and join a convent, we are political!_

 _They're talking about closing down filming_ , Valerie said.

_I know.  Cowley said he might be able to get me a job on one of the government films._

_That's a bad idea._

Ruth smiled ferally.  _I thought you weren't political._

And after that they didn't have that argument anymore.  Although there was something new between them, a violence and a desperation that was no longer laughing or hungry, and sometimes late into the night Ruth would tell Valerie stories about relatives she had never met who died in the camps before she was born.

 _Sometimes, I think you make them up,_ Valerie would say about each tragically emaciated relative who bartered sex for a few more days of existence or drew on the wooden walls of their bunks using burnt twigs and blood.

 _Does it matter?_ Ruth would ask sharply, turning away onto her side.

 _No.  I guess it doesn't,_ she'd reply, remembering that night's television pictures and hating Ruth's tone as if only one of them were suffering.

  
  
One day, Ruth came home shaking.  
  
 _What is it?_ Valerie asked, standing but unable to go to her, as if worried over fear as contagion.  
  
 _Some boys threw rocks at me._  
  
 _Are you hurt?_  
  
Ruth shook her head.  _Persecution always starts as custom,_ she said.  
  
Valerie echoed her gesture, not understanding.  
  
 _Before it becomes law.  It's like sumptuary codes._  
  
Valerie smiled, somehow having forgotten in the last terrible months that Ruth had once been a university student although it hadn't suited her temperament in the least. 

  
  
_We can't go outside together anymore,_ Valerie said one day, even though they'd been living that way for months.  
  
And Ruth was angry, for having the obvious made so plain to her.  _I know._  
  
 _I'm sorry,_ Valerie said in that tone, the tone that made her sound as if she had long roots burrowing from the heels of her feet into the dark, rotting richness of the earth, the tone that had made her a slight star.  She had always had weight, even in her joy.  
  
 _Did someone die?_ Ruth snapped.  
  
Valerie shook her head and didn't answer, certain her observation that they both already had would be unwelcome.  They should have fled, but oh! Ruth's pride.  Maybe it had been too late even then, but it was certainly too late now. 

  
  
_No,_ she said when Valerie tried to move her things into the guest room.  
  
 _Ruth --_  
  
 _No.  If you're afraid, then kick me out, but I will not leave my bed because of a government that will never come to fool neighbors who have always known and never minded!  If nothing else, it's a bad fiction, Valerie.  A bad fiction.  Don't be ugly._  
  
 _If someone searches; they might be willing to pretend for us,_ she said weakly.  
  
 _Will you fuck them to seal the deal?_  
  
 _Ruth._  
  
 _Well you're certainly not fucking me!_  
  
 _I love you!_  
  
Ruth just stood there, hands on her hips.   
  
 _And I'm scared._  
  
Ruth nodded then and went to her.  _So am I._

  
  
After that, things got better, if not in the world, then in their home, the lines they would not cross having been made clear, wisely or no.  They took turns doing errands and knew, always knew, when to expect the other back, precisely and to the minute.  An early arrival brought breathless terror at the thought of who might be giving chase; lateness and there were preparations, if only mental, for death of one sort or another.  
  
It was a terrible, bone-jangling, syncopated way to live.  Sex between them was sudden and violent, then abruptly still should the wrong sort of noise be heard on the street outside; in relief, pleasure would restart, Ruth coming hard with three of Valerie's silencing fingers shoved in her smug mouth.  
  
Privately, Valerie thought about the notion that sex was always supposed to be life affirming, that she and her love were as yet not specifically and individually condemned because their sex didn't make life, but, with the news laws, death.  Surely though neither of them were priestesses of so dark a thing. Why couldn't they have been pitied, like barren women, or thanked, for keeping away from more good and simple folk?  It was, she knew, a child's conception of the world, but only a child, raised on stories of dragons and heroes could, she thought, comprehend everything gone so terribly, terribly wrong. 

  
  
On the day that Ruth did not come home, Valerie was, in some way, secretly relieved.  Even as she listened for her tread on the stair, a swift knocking and a proud announcement of the extra butter bartered for chocolate, Valerie knew.  And unlike all the other times Ruth had been late, she felt no compulsion to compose grand speeches in her head or fuss about tidying their small living room or panic and throw clothes in a satchel for a useless flight.  
  
What she did do was run a bath and consider a razor blade as she sat on the edge of the tub, remembering awkwardly scraping the hair off Ruth's legs with it as they sat facing each other in the hot soapy water just two weeks earlier.  
  
Valerie smiled then, lips closed and teeth pressed too tight together and let the water out before tossing that over-used inch of metal into the trash.  Let them come then for her placid grace, indicting eyes and rooted heels _for wherever you go, I will go ...._

 


End file.
